Autumn in the Appalachians

Sept and Oct. 2022

Kentucky’s Red River Gorge and southwestern Virginia’s Grayson Highlands State Park

View from Haw Mountain, Grayson Highlands State Park

Our 18-month-long RV journey across the U.S. was coming to a close. We had initially planned to travel for two years, and were going to stay in Florida during the upcoming winter, but we changed our plans when we realized we needed to have a permanent home close to Craig’s elderly parents. So, we bought a house in the beautiful Kentucky bluegrass region, and while we waited for the closing date on the house, we took our last RV trip. We have quite a few places on our list to explore in our new home state, but first up was the Red River Gorge.

We went to Natural Bridge State Park in Slade, Kentucky, and rode the skylift instead of hiking up to the bridge. There are a lot of rock arches and bridges in the Gorge, but this one is probably the most well-known.

We had a great view on the way back down. The leaves were just starting to change color.

You can just see the bridge behind us.

The bridge is wide and flat and easy to walk across. Here is the view from the bridge. The top of that rock is where we were standing to view the arch in the photo above.

view from under the bridge

The Red River Gorge goes far beyond this state park. We squeezed our car through the dark, one-lane Nada Tunnel that’s cut out of the rock only 12 feet wide, but 900 feet long, to scenic route 77 with trails and overlooks right off the road.

From here, we headed first to Natural Tunnel State Park, and then to Grayson Highlands State Park, both in southwestern Virginia. We stayed just one night at Natural Tunnel, and did not hike down to the tunnel, but we did take a short, easy hike to Lover’s Leap Overlook for a view of the valley below.

Grayson Highlands is a beautiful state park with a lot of trails. The Appalachian Trail runs through the park.

One of the trails we hiked was the Rhododendron Trail, because wild ponies are often seen in this area. Sure enough, we saw about 6 of them. This was a popular trail, but it was wide and easy, with great views.

We also hiked the Twin Pinnacles Trail to some great views. The best view was from Little Pinnacle, at an elevation of 5,089 feet. The leaves had already fallen off the trees at higher elevations, but the valleys were full of color.

It was cool and windy on top of the Pinnacles.

While our RVing days are over now, we still have lots of travel plans for the future. For now, we are enjoying our new house, which has a big yard and a beautiful view out in the country.

We love being able to see both the sunrise and sunsets from our new house.

We can see fields and small mountains from our house. The view is always changing depending on the season and weather. We are realizing a dream and are so very grateful.